The present invention is directed to a fault or leakage current protective device including a fault current protective switch for the protection of at least two circuits provided by a branching arrangement subsequent to the fault current protective switch and having the same number of phases.
Such a fault current protective device is known in general and may have the form of a so-called plug socket construction. In addition to the fault current protective switch, the plug socket construction has a plurality of plug sockets, for instance, three to five, all protected by the fault current protective switch. There is no selectivity with respect to the individual circuits and plug sockets, so that all of the current flows are switched off when an insulation fault occurs in only one circuit. Moreover, there is no selectivity relative to the level of the threshold of a fault current triggering, so that it is always only the same fault current which leads to a triggering of fault current protective device for the purpose of switching off all circuits.
Another fault current protective device is disclosed in DE-34 31 581 A1, on which the fault current protective device discussed above is based, and in which each circuit is assigned its own fault current protective switch for monitoring a plurality of circuits. In this regard, reference is made to FIG. 12 of DE 34 31 581. A common fault current protective switch is connected ahead of the individual fault current protective switches for the respective circuits, with all of the fault current protective switches located in a single housing. As indicated in the claims in this patent, the fault current protective switches assigned to the individual circuits can also have nominal fault current triggerings of different levels.